I finished the revisions for Luke’s #1 Rule today. Yay! Although…wait. Not quite time to celebrate yet. I’m short a good 20K words for Harlequin American Romance. There’s an easy solution: add more layers, more chapters. It does wind up pretty damn quick. I tend to sprint too fast to the finish line, not pacing myself (or my characters!)
It took two minutes to brainstorm 7 new chapter ideas to flesh out my conclusion. I need a bit more than that unless I want 7 chapters of 28 pages at the end of the book, which I do not. Chapters get shorter at the end of books, not longer.
At the rate of 20 new pages a day (which is a lot more than I usually produce, I’m more like a 8 page a day writer) I could STILL have this done before I go back to work. If that is all I did for the entire day every day. And I can’t. Tuesday I have to prep for class Wednesday. That will take a good part of the day. It’s a holiday weekend and the weather is supposed to be excellent and I have not been out in my garden yet. We haven’t lit the grill! We have a dinner invitation tonight!
So realistically, if I want to layer more story into other sections of the book (and I am already mentally jotting down where I should probably do that) then I need to reread the entire thing, which willl take a day or so, I’ll be able to finish in 10 days. However, since they are “raw” pages, I’ll need another read through afterward. 12 days. That is fine. It is totally doable.
OTOH, if Harlequin should reject my revised proposal, there is no need to add anything. I can e-publish this book by myself. So, the next question is: would I put this book out there as it stands? The answer is no. I would still add some of the crucial scenes I know are missing. It might not add up to 55-60K but it would enrich the story.
What’s next? Write a bunch of new words. And don’t sweat the time it takes. What’s two weeks in the big scheme of things?
If I had three hands I would add that maybe I should put Luke and Chloe aside for now and take up Sugar Shack again, which I know for sure is my self-publish Kindle project. It’s about half-revised. I need a week or two on that project as well. So it makes sense to stay with the project I’m already immersed in and then dive back into SS.
Cynthia Harrison 